[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Perl for scripting (Re: Plans for 1.12)

[Lalo Martins <lalo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jun 26, 2000 at 01:50:07PM +0200, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> 
> > 2) I agree that more people know perl, but scheme is easier to learn.
> > One would have to learn freeciv interface anyway and such calls will
> > compromise most of code, with all that is left being few loop/if
> > statements
> 
> LISP-derivate easier to learn ?
> If you know C, you can start programing perl after 5-minute course.

Not objectively true. You can start writing simple stuff in 5
minutes. You won't understand someone else's code in the first
few months unses it's written specifically for readability (and
not much perl code is). And this is essencial for the scripting
engine of a game.

Objectively, also, there are people who think in different
ways. Some people with some backgrounds will learn Perl easier,
others would learn Scheme easier. You can find the problem
inside the Lisp family itself; some use lisp and can't grasp
scheme, some use scheme and can't grasp lisp, and some won't
live with anything that's not CLOS.

Or putting it the other way around: some people just won't
learn Perl, some just won't learn Scheme.

Either we support both perl and scheme, or we use a language
with a very high "DOH factor" like TCL, Python or Pike.

(DOH factor: the percentage of times you will find out that you
can do something exactly like you thought you could. Scheme has
a low initial DOH factor because you can't "2 + 2", for example.)

[]s,
                                               |alo
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